


Hand Me Downs

by Saentorine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Childhood, Clothing, Crossdressing, Dresses, Family, Family Fluff, Family Secrets, Gen, Gender Related, Loki in a dress, MCU-only canon, Married Couple, Parent Frigga (Marvel), Siblings, Thor: Ragnarok spoilers, inadvertant crossdressing, mcu - Freeform, young loki, young thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 10:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12703329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saentorine/pseuds/Saentorine
Summary: Loki is sick of wearing Thor’s hand-me-downs . . . until he discovers someone else’s hand-me-downs.(Contains mild Thor: Ragnarok spoilers).





	Hand Me Downs

**Author's Note:**

> I know Hela's wardrobe design and color scheme was based on her comics version in which she is Loki’s daughter, which explains why her and Loki’s aesthetic match so much. However, that connection between them doesn't make sense now given the change in the relationship structures-- and since I'm all about using fic to fill plot holes . . .

“Why can’t I have my _own_ clothes?” Loki lamented, as he did every day, tugging in aggravation on an armor-mimicking chestpiece of Thor’s he had been supplied to wear that day. Thor's chest was broader, shoulders wider, and yet torso shorter so his old chestpiece hung awkwardly loose and short of Loki’s naval. Frigga could magically tailor it with a touch of a hand, but first putting it on nevertheless reminded him of how ill-suited for it he was to begin with. 

Frigga made her adjustments despite Loki’s struggling, biting her tongue to keep from retorting in anger that if he didn’t like his clothes, he could just go naked. Odin had suggested it once, and that had been precisely what Loki had done until he caught up with him again.

“These _are_ your clothes,” Frigga insisted. “Thor has outgrown them and now they are yours.” It was a shame, she thought, that he weren't the older one; Loki cared so much more for how his clothing looked and fit than Thor did.

“I mean my own clothes, picked out and made for _me_! Not hand me downs!”

Once fed and however begrudgingly dressed, the two sons of Odin were let loose for a few hours of play before their morning lessons. Thor’s closest companions arrived in perfect timing with the end of his breakfast, appearing dutifully as if summoned by the king he would one day become. In a flurry of practice swords the small band charged through the halls led by Thor, his slighter, dark-haired counterpart in the same clothes tagging behind like a shadow-- and gradually tagging farther and farther behind as the leaders broke away into strategic formations with secret whistles they all could parse but Loki could not.

Loki stopped and sighed, recognizing the game they had decided to play without his consent: “Keep Away From Loki” or “Loki the Enemy” or some such name they probably would never tell him. Slightly less humiliating than “Get Help,” perhaps, but more lonely. He had recently become too proud to cry and wail for them to come back as he used to, but it seemed his companions-- _Thor’s_ companions, rather-- would not cease until he had. As he would not give them the satisfaction, he was left alone.

So he turned to another hobby, and one best undertaken solo: exploring the secrets of the Asgardian court. In his time, Loki had already patiently discovered numerous secret passages in and out of the palace, tunnels beneath the city, false walls and trapdoors in particular locations. Some things were guarded, of course-- there was no _sneaking_ into the vault of Odin’s treasures without disarming a pair of Einherjar-- but some things were notably unmanned, at least so long as he was quiet and unaccompanied. Thor was not the stealthiest of beings, underestimating his own size in fitting into tight spaces and grace in scaling walls. When Thor participated, they were usually discovered straight away.

It was an unseasonably cool day so Loki kept his wanderings indoors. Frigga and Odin had departed for business around the palace, leaving the family’s own quarters deserted, so he chose to explore this territory today, wondering if he might find a secret route out of the family’s most intimate chambers-- for as secure as they were in their power now, surely at some point in the family’s history they had considered the necessity of stealthy flight? It would make sneaking out from his own chambers easier if he did not have to walk through the main rooms of the palace first.

He slipped along the walls, feeling and tapping for indentations or thinness that might indicate a latch or hidden door. He was surprised walking down a passageway he seldom took how quickly he found something of interest: a boarded-up doorway, and around the corner the signs of loose and crumbling wall, as if something or someone had once tried to burrow out a path of escape from within. It was unclear if they had ever made the journey themselves, but Loki was able to. Digging a bit so that the last of the wall gave way, his slim frame was an advantage this time as he wriggled through a chasm just barely wide enough for his hips.

He found himself in a bedroom-- or what _had_ been a bedroom, he deduced from the naked bedstead once his eyes adjusted to the dim light. It was obvious why it was unoccupied, for the walls were crumbling, marble littered in chunks and dust all over the floor and great cracks spanning the ceiling as if the room had undergone its own earthquake apart from the rest of the palace.

Besides the dilapidated frame of a once fine bed, there was only one additional item of furniture in the room, a large wardrobe in surprisingly good condition. Never one to leave something tempting unexplored, Loki could not leave it closed and uninspected.

The thick wood had kept its contents protected from the dust and decay afflicting the rest of the room, so he was met with a comparatively bright assortment of clothes-- not merely a selection of children's clothes, but an entire wardrobe to clothe someone through adulthood and for every occasion: casual playwear, formal garments, pajamas, even armor.

The significance of this find dawned on him. Thor and Loki’s bedrooms were in an opposite wing from this room in relation to their parents’ chambers, with Loki’s on the outermost edge. This room was equidistant from his parents’. Surely, once, this had been meant as _his_ room, and it was only whatever had befallen it and made it unusable that had prevented him from inhabiting it and making use of its contents, which had clearly been designed for him. It had taken Loki himself, small enough to wriggle into the condemned space, to unearth it.

Now certain in his ownership, Loki felt no qualms rifling through the clothing. Scanning through the smaller of the garments, his eyes fell upon a sparkling, gauzy material. He gently tugged it free of the others to reveal a long robe of some sort, silky and shimmering like nothing that Thor ever wore. It took a little effort to detach all the clasps and ties attaching his chestpiece and allow it to drop to the ground (where it resumed its original shape), but the new item slipped over his head with ease, falling to sweep the floor around his feet.

The wardrobe door held a mirror, and in the dim light he could see how the robe flowed when it moved like dark river water over rocks. His pale skin was illuminated against the inky black, eyes shining like emeralds amongst the deep green. It was beautiful, and he was beautiful in it.

He nearly squealed with delight and wriggled as carefully as he could back through the precarious entrance, vigilant of tearing his new robe.

It was time for Odin’s daily lesson with his sons and he had had enlisted Frigga’s help in finding Loki, since she was often better able to guess his whereabouts. He had found Thor and was just beginning to berate him for losing track of his brother-- how many times had he told his sons to _just get along_?-- when the missing son appeared, practically skipping in a very familiar outfit. The color drained from Odin’s face and he stifled a low cough deep in his throat.

Hela had always preferred the freedom of movement afforded by pants, especially by the time she had gone into battle with her father, but every Asgardian maiden had at least one fine gown for feasts and weddings and other solemnity-- and what Loki had picked out was definitely one of them. 

In fact, Odin could remember vividly the last time its original owner had worn it, at a feast following one of Asgard’s early conquests in Niflheim. Back before she was a grown woman, before she was a warrior, before he had ever imagined her life might have come to what it had. Back when she had been all potential, none of it with any reason to fill him with the dread he would come to know-- and when he had naively thought little girls _needed_ a little toughening up to counteract what he presumed a gentler nature. Back when she was the one to fear and respect _him_ , and loved him in his paternalism rather than turning all he had taught her back upon him with full intention to take him down. It was precisely for these ancient memories, so much better than the most recent ones, that he had kept her possessions.

"I found it!" Loki announced triumphantly.

Frigga, smiling good-naturedly at the clearly-pleased Loki, made her best attempt to whisper to Odin without moving her lips. "You kept all of it?"

"Sentiment," growled Odin with a self-chastising sigh as Loki began to swirl in a circle, allowing the skirt to ripple around him as the cutouts at the top of the bodice revealed bare, boney shoulders more delicate than Hela’s had ever been. "So what do we do now?"

"We let him wear it."

Noticing the whispered conversation, Loki stopped spinning for a moment and glanced expectantly at his parents. Thor, too, was speechless, having noted that Loki’s clothes seemed more like something Frigga would wear than Odin or himself, but had to admit they _did_ suit him.

"You look very handsome, Loki," Frigga assured him kindly. “I _thought_ green would suit you.”

“I think so, too!” Loki agreed. “It’s far more subtle. Even a bit more _regal_.” His eyes darted between Odin and Thor, checking if they had detected his tiny bit of insurrection.

“But what if you are shot, Loki?” asked Thor, deeply concerned. “This does not seem to afford you much protection.”

“ _This_ isn’t for battle, Thor,” Loki huffed. “I have _armor_ for that.”

“Oh, good,” Thor breathed in relief. “Shall we try that out, then?”

Frigga knew Loki was clever enough to understand what Thor was suggesting—“trying out” armor would involve a lot of blows to Loki contained within it-- but it was a mark of how pleased he was with his find that the proposition was acceptable and both brothers dashed away merrily to execute it.

When the boys were out of earshot, Odin let out a more audible sigh of exasperation.

“It’s really no different from a robe,” Frigga pointed out. “Especially at his age.”

“It’s not that.”

Frigga drew closer to him, sensing the grief in his memories. They were tinged with anger, too, which is why she did not come close enough to touch him. 

"If your intention is to re-write our history,” she advised him quietly, glancing upward at the ceiling, “then let him help you re-write it. The few old enough to remember may be swayed that what they remember was Loki all along. And perhaps it will help ease _your_ memories as well.”

Odin nodded, though absently, chewing over her words that were not enough to ease his discomfort. For all he had painted over, the rooms he had barricaded, the possessions hidden or destroyed, the memories remained—and all the more vivid knowing that she was still out there. It was not merely a past he was trying to forget, but a present and potential future. They both could see well enough to know how possible that future was.

"Will you get in there before he's too familiar and weed out anything _too_ . . . egregious?" Odin asked her, thinking that at a certain point as he grew Loki was bound to notice garments sculpted for anatomy he did not possess.

"Well, my first priority is anything that might still have _blood stains_.”

“What if he learns of her?” As always, Odin longed to keep the family’s darkest secrets secret as long as possible, even if it meant risking them knowing before he had time to explain.

“He won’t,” Frigga replied. They had so diligently hidden it all, all along. And besides: “I’d do anything in my power to keep him from knowing he’s wearing more hand me downs!”


End file.
